First Time In the Pool, 1975

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse#166

Come join us!

Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. ~German proverb

 

When I was a child I did not go into the deep end  

swimming is hard to learn when you never leave dry land

I lingered at the shallow side

 needing to have my feet touch the bottom of the pool

the only thing I truly learned that day

was to hold on to the side tight

you see my fear of the loss of control gripped me even tighter

fear is a harsh teacher

it can bruise and it can maim  

providing a true regret

that sticks with you like a heavy meal on a hot day

the kind that leaves you thirsty and parched

yet it is there that courage can immerge

in the longing to quench the deepest of thirsts

when hands reach out

you learn to let go of the sides

and venture deeper in

for that is the only way to learn

and get where you surely need to be.

The Dream Poems

   Rebeca Cygnus photography
Visit her website HERE

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 77

In a dream you are never eighty.  ~Anne Sexton


I double dog dared myself to write 2 poems for this one, so here are my poems for the promt:

The Casualties of Dreams,

Awake I dream of what could be

But Asleep I dream of what has been

re-living my past as a person at times I barely know

each place is a little different

and yet everything is always the same

I brave storms in rooms I have lived in

and walk close to the edge of cliffs where

I know I have never walked

fearless as I would have been

 before I ever knew what it was to fall

yet all the fears I have learned to hold

come out like pigeons wanting crumbs

and every struggle I have wrestled with

manifests itself like a spirit

 that floats through walls

that I rarely can escape

I almost lose my dearest love

 down every dangerous street

As I fall further from where I once was

Lost and feeling alone

Then my father

 who has been gone for decades

 enters asking me

 do I know where I am?

My voice answers

 I am only dreaming

As my heart answers,

Yes I am here to visit you!

For awake I dream of what could be

But asleep I dream of what has been.

************************************

The Soul's Odyssey,


It is as an excursion of the heart
when we lay our head to rest
where the matters of the soul
journey back to be a guest
the day rewinds from eyes open to eyes shut
 and our thoughts reach out to explore
opening every closed window
and running through every open door
from childhood homes and play grounds
to peril in the streets
it is a high action movie
that is viewed from within the sheets

French Kissed

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 56 hosted by one of my favorite poets in the whole world, Shay!


Fear is the highest fence. ~Dudley Nichols

I watch you from afar holding my breath as you dare to live bravely

For it is a wild ride for those willing to stand on the edge

You never did merely kiss life on the cheek

You always French Kissed full on

With lips set apart

To ride with you is always an experience

That pushes past the safety rails

And dives deep into wild seas

You come up for air

Only to dive right back in deeper

You fly higher

Roll faster

And strip naked to the world unashamed

 willing to walk barefoot on shifting sands

falling never stopped you

so, you keep moving on no matter what lies ahead

and I watch you from afar holding my breath as you dare to live bravely

sometimes a cautious heart misses out on beauty

 avoiding all the bruises that could await.

©Carrie Van Horn 2019

Skid Marks

Linking with Poets United for lovely Magaly's Telling Tales: A Pantry of Prose Month #3 The subject is Phobias.  We can also choose to take an old poem and turn it into a story in 313 words or less. (Mine is 312.)
I hope you will join us!

Note:
This is mostly fiction, only a few details are true.  I took a morsel of what is and ran with it.  I hope you like it.

Photo by Artem Bali from Pexels

Some things we go through in life, leave a lasting mark, like a skid mark on the highway, serving as a constant reminder of what was and what will never be.  From the time I was a child, fear was fed to me like peanut butter and jelly.  It always did get stuck on the roof of my mouth, leaving a taste on my tongue that would not soon disappear.  Fear is like that, it sticks with you and can be hard to swallow and wash away.   I watched my mother and her mother before her suffer from the affliction of fear, and the hold that it can have on you when it is deep inside you.  

I have found freedom and fear do not co-exist in the same place.  If you hold fear, freedom is far from your reach indeed.  When I was 22 years old driving home with a friend from a dinner party, I hit a deer on a country road.  It all happened so fast.  A figure came moving in, my tires skidding on the pavement, and my car colliding with the gentlest of God’s creatures, ending up in a deep ravine. 

That is all I remember; the rest is a blur that crosses lines of the truth and what was never spoken.  I am still here, wishing I could go back and make it never happen.  So many times, I tried to drink away the memory of it, but unlike taking out a bullet in the wild west, the whiskey only made it hurt more deeply.

You see I am still here, but my friend, a wild eyed French major, wearing no seat belt is not.  Gregg was only 24 and had plans larger than life.  I have never gotten behind the wheel again.  It is through this, I came to better understand my mother.  

©Carrie Van Horn 2019

Paper Cuts and Land Slides

Photo Credit


Linking with Imaginary Gardens for the Tuesday Platform brought to us by the lovely Magaly also linking with Poets United for the Mid Week Motif ~ When I think about Myself brought to us by the lovely Sumana and lastly linking with The Sunday Muse
come join us!


"Many of our fears are tissue-paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us through."
~Brendan Francis



I never could walk in the rain with the ease of a star or runway model
I am not that girl
the one that takes the dangerous path
barefoot in the middle of nowhere
unconcerned with what may come
I am the lady that arrives early
to the Dr.'s office
on the verge of sickness
with an umbrella
not because it is raining
but because it could
 when I leave the building
my bag is full of every document
known to man I could need
and my mind is even fuller
with the thought of
driving back in the rain
control is a small beady eyed old man
and no one knows his name
or where he was last
I have been trying to track him down
ever since grade school
I tried Marco Polo
but he was never listening
the only thing I have had control over
is my bladder
until about 2016
now it seems I could just throw caution to the wind
since not much remains in my hands anyway
jewel thief's have ransacked my marble collection
it seems i never had them contained from the beginning
life is full of paper cuts and land slides
and somewhere between band aids and mud boots
I lost sight of the difference between the two
uncertainty is a scary thing 
especially when you are young
if you learn to fear and dread early
all perspective can get distorted
like the view through the wrong prescription glasses
all objects get blurry
everything becomes scary and uncertain
I am learning to change what I see
but this has proved to be a slow process
like road repair done by old nuns
still I try to make control my own ordained ministry
even though I am no minister
with time I have found
it is not what one acquires
that makes it clear
but more what one
learns in the process
of letting it go.

Bigger is Not Always Better

Photo Credit

Linking with dVerse for Poetics: Border
brought to us by Grace

"If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.

~ Neil Simon

Sometimes my mind needs a border collie to steer it in the right direction 

cause my sense of boundaries sometimes gets lost

you see agoraphobia runs in our family

my grandmother only left the house 

once a year to vote

my mother followed the same path

our summers growing up were weeks on end at home

when I was in my 30's I discovered I had a touch of it

on a grander level if you will

we went on a trip to Missouri and I suddenly felt 

anxiety and had no reason why

after a couple jots out of town after that

I realized that when I left town I had the symptoms

it was like agoraphobia on a larger plain

my grandmother could not leave the house

but I could not leave town

wow leave it to my dysfunctional brain

to do it on a broader range.

The Cure for Flying Fears

Linking with Imaginary Gardens for the "Tuesday Platform" where Marian shares her anxiety for April and tackling a poem a day, and her BIG moment meeting her literary hero Michael Chabon.  I decided to share a story from long ago that I think covers both subjects; anxiety and meeting someone famous.  Although, my story also has a bit of humiliation to add to the scenario.

So here we go:

 

 

 Many years ago when I was in my 30's, my dear friend paid for me to fly to Ft. Worth to visit for my birthday.  I had not flown in over 10 years and my flight there was a total disaster for me.  I tried to keep my composure, but in my head I was freaking out.  All I could think about was how fast the plane was going, what a horrific death it would be if it crashed, and how I was going to give my friend a piece of mind for putting me through such torment.  She laughed when I told her about it, and being the wise and patient friend that she is, she told me that she would buy me a double margarita at the airport for the flight back.

 When we arrived at the airport to send me back home, we made a quick trip to the bar to quench my fears so they would depart my body.  Eventually we were at the waiting area and my friend noticed that the guys from the band "The Cure" were also on my flight.  At the time, I was not familiar with their music, but it was obvious they were a band, and some girls were getting their autograph.  By the time the plane was loading, they had already been seated in first class.  My friend sweetly walked with me all the way to the opening of the airplane.  Conveniently, it was right in the eye view of "first class".  Before we said our goodbyes, she explained to the stewardess that I had a BIG fear of flying and to take good care of me.  For a moment I was back in grade school, feeling the embarrassment that one feels when their mother exposes their little issues, like "she does wet the bed sometimes" or "that tangled mess on her head is a rat's nest no comb can move through" but lets not forget my favorite, "don't give her red meat, it gives her gas!"  All I could think about was I have just been totally humiliated in front of a rock band!  What luck, next stop VEGAS!!  Don't get me wrong, I was never mad at my friend in the slightest.  She was just so worried about me and her motives were genuine.  It was just bad timing, or I guess bad luck.  I walked meekly passed the band into coach where the road crew and all us nobodies fly.  As the plane took off and headed to Houston, I realized that my crazy fear, was almost gone.  I am not sure if it was the double margarita or the distraction of the rock band, but whatever it was, I was not dying a million deaths in my head and for that I was very grateful!!  Evidently"The Cure", was my cure!

 

 

 

 

The Fear of Falling

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Fear is the highest fence.  ~Dudley Nichols

It is the falling that always gets to us
that keeps a person away from the scenic edge

holding tight to the railing for safety
distancing one's feet from the outer ledge.
That feeling of utter loss of control
when there is nothing below our feet
and the uncertainty of the landing
becomes another excuse to surely retreat.
For falling in love is a force that takes us off the beaten path
and if we choose to follow, it takes all the courage we have.




 linking with Poet's United for the Mid Week Motif ~ "Courage"

Kiss Life On The Lips

Linking with Poetry Jam a great place for writers that blog.

Life is a lover one must kiss on the lips if you want to feel its warm embrace.

You cannot merely touch its hand, or peck its soft sweet face.

Wrap your arms around it and hold it forever near.

Caress its naked truth and strip away your threads of fear.

Crawl into its cushioned bed and lie next to its reward of bliss.

For to live life to its fullest you must kiss it right on the lips.

The Child Speaks

Monday's Child #12

The child will freely stare,

but the adult will merely glance.

The child always goes eagerly out on a limb,

but the adult steps out carefully afraid to fall.

The child asks simply for one reason why,

but the adult preoccupies with the answers to it all.

The child embraces love whole heartedly,

but the adult slowly touches it scared it will

swallow them whole.

The child speaks his mind honestly,

but the adult only says what he cares to show.

Monday's Child a wonderful site for poets check it out. :-)

A Mighty Weakness

Poets United Think Tank Prompt #14

I am a wall I can be made of cement and rise up many yards high,

or I may be made of brick or stone, and reach out across the county side.

Sometimes I am a memorial that represents millions of brave souls,

and other times I am a fortress of protection that tells you where not to go.

But I hold up at my most mighty, and yet at my weakest place,

when I am built with fear, and doubt littered with pride's own waste.

There are walls that protect...

There are walls that remember...

There are walls that divide....

and there are walls that are destructive...

I am all too familiar with the walls a broken heart can build.

My father and brother had a "falling out", and were at odds with each other for years.

They did not speak for long periods of time, and never resolved their hard feelings.

When my father passed away in 1992 my brother was devastated.

He was in a form of grief the rest of his life.

He passed away in 2002.

I have faith, and I am certain that they know peace now.

Hope Whispers When It Speaks

Inperfect Prose

I spent many frightened nights
in a stupor creeping down the stairs
with the subtlety of snow
drifting to my father's bedside
afraid to truly awaken him
yet softly calling his name
and tapping his arm
as uncertain as a scarf in the breeze
I stood there for what seemed to be hours
waiting for him to notice me
like I had done so many times before
but he never did
years later he still never knew
of my presence those weary nights
yet I had been there
just the same.




"Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark."  ~George Lles

Life can be hard, and sometimes it can seem too uncertain, but I have learned that no matter how difficult it may be...there is always hope...we just loose sight of it sometimes.  Like dry land to a sailor, we venture beyond the horizon, but that does not mean that the land vanished from exhistance, only that it is out of our direct sight.  The continent of hope still rests on the oceans of our life.